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The Withdrawal

Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power

Audiobook
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0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: Available soon

Two of our most celebrated intellectuals grapple with the uncertain aftermath of the American collapse in Afghanistan.

Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy—not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds.

Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents. Called "the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet" by the New York Times Book Review, Noam Chomsky is the guiding light of dissidents around the world. In The Withdrawal, Chomsky joins with noted scholar Vijay Prashad—who "helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media" (Eduardo Galeano)—to get at the roots of this unprecedented time of peril and change.

Chomsky and Prashad interrogate key inflection points in America's downward spiral: from the disastrous Iraq War to the failed Libyan intervention to the descent into chaos in Afghanistan.

As the final moments of American power in Afghanistan fade from view, this crucial book argues that we must not take our eyes off the wreckage—and that we need, above all, an unsentimental view of the new world we must build together.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 30, 2022
      Linguist Chomsky (The Responsibility of Intellectuals) and historian Prashad (The Darker Nations) take a blistering tour of U.S. foreign policy failures. In a series of edited conversations, the authors contend that U.S.-led military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya not only failed to achieve their objectives, but unleashed “chaos” and “needless suffering” on civilians. They trace the roots of these debacles to America’s “Godfather attitude,” which “expanded geometrically” after the collapse of the Soviet Union left the U.S. without a rival superpower. Claiming that the CIA was more responsible for 9/11 than the Taliban, Chomsky and Prashad classify the invasion of Afghanistan as an “illegitimate aggression.” Elsewhere, they delve into the Reagan administration’s strong support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran; explain how the NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 undermined promising peace negotiations led by the African Union; and predict that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will bring Russia and China closer together and significantly set back efforts to mitigate climate change. Though the conversations tend to ramble, Chomsky and Prashad have a firm command of their subject matter and make incisive connections between seemingly disparate events. The result is a fierce and well-informed condemnation of U.S. imperialism.

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  • English

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